Fostering a Student-Centered Campus
October 14 – 15, 2026 | Denver, CO
Transform your leadership strategy into structural change for student-centered success.
What You'll Gain
- Move beyond student-centered buzzwords to a shared language and operational clarity for your leadership team.
- Identify specific structural gaps where policies or communication prioritize institutional convenience over student needs.
- Craft a plan that identifies the specific policies, people, and processes required to sustain change.
- Build skills to lead through resistance and establish accountability.
Overview
In this 2-day workshop, senior leaders will confront the reality that “student-centered” often remains a hollow phrase until it is backed by structural accountability. By probing the assumptions embedded in existing policies, you will move past institutional convenience to address the genuine needs and lived experiences of your students. Through the Service Excellence Model and journey mapping, you will translate leadership intent into a concrete implementation roadmap that bridges the gap between high-level strategy and actual student success. Ultimately, this experience empowers you to lead a cultural transformation where every decision and communication is intentionally designed to foster student belonging and persistence.
Session Descriptions
More details about the event schedule can be found by clicking Learn More and Register, but session descriptions of the two days are below:
Our Framework—and Defining “Student-Centered”
Clarity of definition is a prerequisite for meaningful change. To start, we’ll share our Service Excellence Model that fosters a student-centered campus and identify what “student-centered” means. Through guided discussion and examples, you’ll distinguish between surface-level practices and true institutional commitment.
Introduction to the Customer Service Assessment Tool
In this session, we’ll explore the Customer Service Assessment Tool, a unique tool which will help you and colleagues to evaluate your current efforts and areas for growth.
Establishing Service Standards for a Student-Centered Institution
This working session will press you to consider decision-making, communication, responsiveness, and impact in creating service standards for your institution.
Translating Standards into Leadership
Now that you’ve set standards, what leadership skills are needed to uphold them and bring them to life on campus? This session will utilize the Academic Impressions Leadership Framework to help you to connect your standards directly to behaviors that foster accountability.
From Leadership to Implementation
Where should you begin to foster your student-centered campus? In this session, you’ll work to identify the student lifecycle through journey mapping to inform your work, and you’ll also identify the policies, processes, decisions, and people that must be involved.
Your Implementation Roadmap
We’ve set aside time for you to map out what it means to implement your plan, so that you arrive back on campus ready to begin.
Leading Through Resistance
Any culture change is challenging, and resistance is normal. This session will help you to evaluate where you can anticipate resistance and how to overcome it.
Assessing (Again)
Once you have implemented your service standards and plan, how will you know if you’re making gains toward student-centeredness? We’ll examine how to gather feedback and what mechanisms need to be utilized (or created).
Reward and Recognition
How will you reward the behaviors you want to see? This brainstorming session will give you a chance to identify what those behaviors are and how to effectively encourage them.
Who Should Attend:
Senior leaders who can affect change around whether a campus is student-centered will benefit most from this event. This includes academic leaders like Provosts, Associate/Assistant Provosts, and Chiefs of Staff, as well as staff leaders like Vice Presidents of Student Affairs and Deans of Students.
How You Will Use This to Move Work Forward
- Academic Leaders – Audit your academic policy and experience through a student lens.
- Chiefs of Staff – Bridge the gap between student strategy and execution.
- Staff Leaders – Redesign the hidden curriculum of administration to better support students.
Bring a team! Register 3 or more people and save more than $1,000! Discounts will be automatically applied at checkout.
What makes our events different?
Academic Impressions workshops provide the opportunity for quality conversations and relationship-building through both formal and informal networking opportunities in an intimate setting. Our in-depth and hands-on approach to learning provides you with actionable takeaways.
Learn More About the Academic Impressions Workshop Experience ➞
Grow Leadership.
Maximize Your Budget.
Empower your team with leadership development that pays off. Our Workshop Flex Packs help you build leadership capacity while saving money. For a limited time, save up to $795 a seat when you purchase 3 or more seats.
Pricing
October 14-15, 2026
Denver, CO
Starting at:
-
Non-Member Price: $2,495
/person
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Member Price: $2,245
/person
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Teams: Save $2,000+
for teams of 3 or more
Members get a $250 discount
Additional optional add-ons are available during checkout.
Questions About the Event?
Heath Boice-Pardee
Head of Practice in Service Excellence, Academic Impressions
Learn More about Heath Boice-Pardee|
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